Tag Archives: film

Angelina Jolie may be the most beautiful woman on the planet, the face that launches not thousands, but countless ticket sales for the pleasure of seeing her unforgettable image on the wide screens of movie theaters across the globe. Like Edgar Allan Poe’s “Helen,” she has a “classic” beauty that seems to defy time. She does not seem of this century, but of any century, take your pick.

No wonder she was chosen to play the gorgeous and gloriously malcontented Maleficent in Disney’s “retelling” of the animated “Sleeping Beauty” that I saw as a child. And why not? Figuring out whether or not “true love’s kiss” cures anything, including the need for a wake-up call, is a puzzle that is never going to go away.

Now let me tell you right up front that this is not a movie review, and I am going to give it all away, so just ex-out right now if you are afraid of “spoilers.” This is just some writing–you don’t need movie reviewers to help you with Disney movies now, do you? Of course not. And to tell you the truth, I am sick to death of “critics,” with their murderous dissections, their insufferable arrogance. They don’t “help” me as much as they protest. It’s my movie and I will like it if I want to. Or, not. Usually, I change sides. I like to think about it, revel in ambivalence or just be fickle about it. Hey, the stakes are low.

Every truly great idea has a birth narrative. This particular idea was conceived while I was departing the theater at the conclusion of the movie Pearl harbor… you remember, the one with Ben Affleck and that other guy… as I was walking to my car, I realized I had seen this movie before… twice… or more precisely, I had seen pieces of this movie in two previous places. Pearl Harbor should have been subtitled: Saving Private Titanic. And that’s when it hit me: Every movie is the Hegelian synthesis of two previous movies.